Seneste anmeldelser af BugZy

Merry Xmas everyone, great fun at this time of year 10/10 for chickens!

Hide and Shriek is a jumpscare game of one-versus-one where you have to find and ‘shriek’ the other person, but with one twist – you’re both invisible. Is it worth buying?

For pictures in the review, read the review on the Games Worth Buying website - http://www.gamesworthbuying.com/2016/11/02/hide-and-shriek-review/

I’ve always wanted to know what Harry feels like with that invisible cloak on, and now that Hide and Shriek is out, I do. I have been able to absorb the full Hogwarts experience, with spells, runes, orbs and jumpscares. In fact, I’ll make sure I bold every jumpscare in this article, just because the game is essentially one big jumpscare. In the game the frightening pop-ups are referred to as ‘shrieks’, but I would rather call them what they are: jumpscares.

I first entered this game without pressing the big and obvious ‘How to Play’ button on the main menu, which I did regret as soon as the match started. My friend and I started a private game because a duck would have more luck beating the pros than us.

Our first session consisted of running around, asking ‘Where the flaming hell are you?’ to hear the reply, ‘You’ll have to find me!’ My opponent/almost former friend kept breaking into sudden laughter which freaked me out as I hadn’t a clue what would unfold throughout the match, but it turns out he just set down a mild scare trap. Ten seconds later he screamed ‘Oh for God’s sake, I ran into the damned thing!’

It was slow and we didn’t manage to jumpscare each other at all because we didn’t know what we were doing, but as soon as we read the rules and tips, (it’s a man thing), that all changed dramatically. In the next match, we both knew the basic fundamentals of play, and it got very intense. Very intense.

Anyhow, let’s delve into it.

As stated above, the game is all about jumpscaring the other person. If you manage to jumpscare them three times in a row without getting jumpscared yourself, you win. You also have a designated colour throughout the match, and you get points for doing numerous different things, acquiring most of them by performing ‘ancient rituals’ (placing your colour’s orbs on your colour’s altar). If you have the most points at the end of the ten-minute match, you also win.

Placing your orbs on your altar isn’t the only way to get points, you also get them for jumpscaring the other person and having them run into your traps. You can also lose points by being in the ‘void’ for extensive periods of time, and you can send the other person to the void with the use of a few spells like the ‘black hole’.

Spells can be obtained by collecting one to three runes, each combination of the runes (which have different colours, shapes and names) creating a different spell. If you wish to keep track of your discovered spells, you can go into the ‘Grimoire’ in the customisation menu and see all that you’ve used before.

The runes and orbs can be found scattered around the five-room school map in cupboards, on benches, in bins, in lockers, on window sills, on the floor – pretty much everywhere.

‘Both of you are invisible. How will you know where the other person is?’ Well, that is a good question that you probably haven’t asked. You need to keep an eye on your spells which can guide you to the other person and your traps which will activate when the player is near. You can also see the other person when they’re carrying an orb, sprinting, or when they’ve failed a jumpscare.

So your goal, basically, is to figure out where your opponent is, whilst making sure they don’t know where you are.

The matches in Hide and Shriek are very intense and unpredictable. Not knowing when your opponent will jump out, not knowing what trap lies behind a door and not knowing whether your opponent knows where you are at any given moment really keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Oh, and you can dress your jumpscare face up and choose what you want it to look like from a range of different faces and decorations that you earn through levelling up or finding in the matches.

For me, finding a match can be somewhat of a dilemma. I’m in Australia though, so for you it might be a completely different story. Also, there is no communication with the other person throughout the match that I know of without adding them on Steam, which is rather odd. It’s sort of like Dead by Daylight in that sense.

There isn’t a big backstory behind the game except for a few ‘The Secret World’ references and the following paragraph from the games Steam store page: ‘It’s Halloween and the students of magic at Little Springs High and Innsmouth Academy are about to honor an ancient tradition: sneaking into school after midnight, turning themselves invisible, and scaring the living hell out of each other!’

I’ve encountered a few unbalanced things, namely the ‘Scry’ spell, which allows you to see your opponent through walls. It’s a ‘tier 3’ spell, which means it’s harder to discover and takes three runes to make, but once you know it it’s not that hard to get. Scry lets you see nearby orbs and your opponent, wherever they are on the map. This is extremely overpowered, it would be better if you could only see them in the same room.

I’ve also discovered that the altar can spawn in the same room numerous times in a row which can be unbalanced. I know it’s random but that would be an easy fix by ensuring that the altar changes rooms after use. I got the altar in the same room five times in a row, and with all of the orbs lying around I got an easy 50,000 points. The other player couldn’t catch up.

That is all fine and dandy. A few things need balancing here and there, but besides that, it’s a cool game. The one thing the game truly lacks is the ‘horror’ aspect, the creepiness, something that makes it eerie and worthy of the ‘horror’ tag. It comes up in ‘horror’ on Steam, and if something comes up in ‘horror’, I expect there to be ‘horror’, and lots of it! The jumpscares aren’t enough to justify a horror, a true horror needs spooky atmosphere and a chilling backstory with lots of suspense – the only suspense here is the jumpscares. I don’t think the tag should be there, because the game isn’t a horror in my humble opinion.

Despite the lack of horror, I’m enjoying unlocking new characters, owning and getting owned by some jumpscare master that I’ve never met before, and playing with my mates on it, even though their screams are highly exaggerated.

Overall, I believe Hide and Shriek is something you should try if you are interested. I find it fun – not because it frightened me, because it didn’t, or because of an incredible backstory or plot, because there isn’t much there; I like it because it’s original. I know, jumpscares themselves aren’t original, but a multiplayer jumpscare-off with a random person? Now there’s a game worth the money!

👍 Hide and Shriek IS worth the US$6 it is available for.


We were provided with a key of the game for review purpose by Funcom, the game’s developer. This does not influence the outcome of the review in any way.

Insult Your Way To Victory In Oh… Sir!

For the review with pictures, read it on the Games Worth Buying website - http://www.gamesworthbuying.com/2016/10/29/insult-your-way-to-victory-in-oh-sir/

Oh… Sir! brings insults and slander to a whole new British level.
Coming up with insults is second nature; it’s an automatic function that the human mind can’t resist. We just can’t hold ourselves back from insulting people. Oh… Sir! harnesses that and concentrates it on hurting random people’s feelings in a brilliant little $2 game.

Worth every penny.

It’s a wonderful feeling, winning an argument that is so feeble-minded that a three-year-old could outwit both competitors at the same time in. There’s nothing quite like telling people ‘your mother doesn’t like your cousin’s car and was born in your favourite Bond actor and smells like homeless man’s socks’, and you can do exactly that in this funny insult trading simulator.

In the game, you must concoct the master insult in turn-based phrase-picking. You choose one word or phrase, then your opponent chooses one, then you choose another, then your opponent chooses another, etc. This goes on until you’ve used enough turns to tell the other player that their father works with the Hell’s Grannies Gang and dances like a parrot, and they blurt out that your hovercraft has worse hair than your house. After a few exchanged insults, you find out that you might not really be worth this first class train seat that you’ve been bickering about after all.

If you use the same subject two insults in a row, you get a ‘combo’ which deals a bunch more damage to your foe’s pride. In the end, you want to make them lose all their pride and give up because you’re too tough to let words hurt you.

Each character that you can choose from before entering a verbal abuse-fest has their own weakness, such as the old lady getting most offended when you speak about age or death, and the stylish gentleman becoming upset over you insulting his style. They also have their own phrases, such as the Russian character muttering in Russian and Morgan Freeman going on about ‘puny mortals’.

You can practice against the CPU to test and hone your insult-dealing skills, try to offend a random person online, or compete against your friends on same system over the Internet.

For $2 it’s a bargain and I’m having a blast annoying people in it.

Clustertruck is a parkour speedrun truck-jumping game with a floor-is-lava twist. Is it worth buying?

For the picture-filled review, read it on the Games Worth Buying website - http://www.gamesworthbuying.com/2016/10/26/clustertruck-review/

If you are lucky enough to have had an even remotely decent childhood, chances are you have played a game where you act as though the floor is a fiery pit of lava. The rules of the game are simple, and all kids, no matter their race, colour or creed, have an innate, almost spooky inner knowing of them. You jump from one piece of furniture to the next, and you must not, under any circumstance, fall off, or else you will end up on the carpet in the deadly lava, resulting in your ultimate doom.

Clustertruck is similar in a way, with the basic fundamentals much like that of the old game that those of us not living under a rock know and used to love, except the pieces of furniture are moving and they are now trucks driven by drunks. Of course they are.

The entire game is pretty much that. You jump from truck to truck in minimalist graphics and well designed but sometimes – actually a lot of the time – annoying but great levels. It’s fun.

Chaos and destruction, including trucks driving off the edge to their impending explosive deaths, are a normal sight in Clustertruck, and it’s absolutely spectacular. It’s not so spectacular when you’re relying on that truck making it to the end of the level, though, which happens quite often. Almost all of the game consists of evading obstacles that can make the truck below you blow up, for instance swinging hammers, flamethrowers, walls, bits of the floor getting pushed up, and other trucks.

The game movement is slippery and somewhat difficult to get used to. After over seven hours of playing the game, I’m still struggling. That’s not a downside though, it adds to the challenge and makes it more fun. There are also a few movement-based bugs (are they bugs? I can’t figure out whether they were intended), such as launching myself up off the tailgate of a truck and flinging across the levels, and using the grapple hook ability to just ignore the map and Spiderman over completely.

Spanned across nine worlds, the 90 official Clustertruck levels are a great enjoyment, especially when you’ve just aced one in one try. There is also Steam Workshop support, so as well as the official levels, you can subscribe to and download a bunch more, hand crafted by the community in the game’s level editor. Although there are only a few very good Workshop levels, it’s still pretty cool to see what creations others have brewed up.

It took me around four hours to finish all the Landfall-made levels, so I decided to try the community levels and that took up another few hours of my time.

At first glance, Clustertruck’s custom level editor looked complicated to me, but shortly after digging in and building a couple of terrible levels, I soon got the hang of it. Placing buildings, roads and dangerous traps and making trucks drive in their own paths is reasonably easy, and if I got stuck, I’d just use the relatively long and detailed help sheet.

Clustertruck has an unlockable ability system where you can use in-game points that you accumulate through playing and completing the game’s levels to purchase numerous different powers including jetpacks, slow motion, grapple hooks and levitation. This, for me, takes away the feel of the game I had hoped for, and although it’s another feature (and features are good), I would have suggested that they just scratch that idea and build the game with the initial raw, truck jumping feeling.

The game’s AI paths vary ever so slightly from game to game; sometimes you can ride a truck to the end, sometimes it’ll veer off causing a major crash, resulting in the deaths of both you and fifteen truck drivers. This is great as it adds a certain amount of randomness, but it can also be level-breaking, like all of the trucks crashing, leaving the level impossible to finish.

When I first heard about Clustertruck I was skeptical, and to a degree I still am, because I think the concept is great, but I’m not quite sure whether it’s big enough to deserve its own title.

I’m torn this time because of that. I would recommend buying it when it goes on special, but if you think you would enjoy it and wish to purchase it at its current US$15, then there’s nothing inside me that would try to convince you otherwise. It’s considerably short but it’s still brilliant fun, and for that reason I will have to say:

👍 Clustertruck IS worth the US$15 it is available for.

We were provided with a key of the game by Landfall Games, the game’s developer, for review purpose. This does not influence the outcome of the review in any way.

SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell is a very fast, first person platformer, starring heavy metal, the Devil, beer and lots of spikes.

If you enjoy beer more than life itself, then you should relate to the poor fella in this game. One night he was drinking his beer, enjoying his time, when – long story short – a series of unfortunate events unfold, leaving him with the Devil’s hand and no beer. This forces him to set on an epic journey to take back his beer from ♥♥♥♥♥. I’m very good at explaining stories, aren’t I? In SEUM you play as the man who has lost all he loves (his beer), and who will do anything to get it back – even if that means 1v1-ing the Devil himself, which is absolutely one hundred percent not a good idea. Unless you’re redneck Devil hand beer guy, in that case you’re good to go!

Anyway, you progress through the depths of hell, ultimately attempting to beat all 100 levels and get your beer back, whilst keeping your soul. In each level there is a set time that you must finish the level in, giving you the silver medal for the map, with an optional, quicker time, that gives you the gold medal. There is also beer to grab on each level for completionists, and once you have collected all of the beer – or as many as it says – you gain access to a bonus level on each floor. After the main game is finished there are also a bunch of extra levels on floor -9, though I haven’t been able to figure out how to get them yet.

The levels consist of lots of running, jumping and restarting. There are four powers that you can grab in the levels, one teleporting you to wherever you shoot, one reversing gravity, one making a checkpoint that you can use to go one way and activate something, then warp back to the checkpoint to save time, and one building platforms in the air for you to jump on.

Beer, hell and heavy metal are the three key elements in SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell. That last part is especially important in the game for me, because the epic riffs and solos in the soundtrack fuel my vengeance to get the poor man’s beer back, making me play ten times better. Sometimes the songs get a bit repetitive (the tracks play on a loop), but when you’re focusing on beating the levels you don’t really notice. I noticed, though, because I pick on the little things.

Being based in hell, SEUM features lots of saw blades, swinging axes on chains, and spikes, smeared with fresh blood. Creepy. In the bottom of each level there is a large pit with gigantic spikes that could impale a dinosaur. You know, the usual ♥♥♥♥♥ stuff. The art style, as you can see in the images, isn’t exactly realistic, but it isn’t cartoon-like. The cutscenes, as you can also see, are comics – quite well done actually (they are animated, but you can’t see that from still images).

The dialogue is comedic, with phrases including ‘There’s nothing like a good beer,’ and ‘Damn you Pine Studio!’ Those are quotes from the playable character, but you will be saying them soon enough. The Devil also speaks, as a voice-in-your-head figure, with quotes such as ‘Yes…’ and ‘Fatality!’ Be aware, though, the game does feature strong language. I’m sure you aren’t really interested in the dialogue, but I thought I’d cover it because not many people realise that good sound effects and voice acting plays a major role in whether a game seems cheesy or not. This game makes the cheesiness of the quotes on paper sound awesome in-game, especially with the guitars going in the background.

If you like to brag about your skill, you can do that with the game’s leaderboards. It’s not as easy as it looks though, some people out there are incredibly fast!

There are two other modes besides the main story mode, one being ‘Speedrun’ and the other, ‘Endless’. Speedrun is a mode where you are pit against other players’ fastest times for a whole floor on the leaderboards, in an attempt to beat them – but as I said, it’s not easy, some people are very quick. In Endless you compete against a massive spinning spike-riddled rolling pin in a randomly generated endless map where you must reach as far as you can. The rolling pin could move a bit slower, I mean, we’re not all that fast!

One thing I would have loved is a custom level builder. The game is brilliant enough without it, but it would have been nice for the game to have just that little extra bit of community interaction.

I've had a smashing time playing this gem so far. I almost threw a brick through my computer fifty times, but I have restrained myself… mostly. It’s been a great experience, almost completely finishing a challenging game for once. I think you should all give SEUM a go, or at least try the free demo that is available to download on Steam. If you have $15 to drop for a good game that will keep you going for quite a few hours, you should definitely check out this one.

👍 SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell IS worth the US $15 it is available for.

Hi-Rez studios, the publisher of Paladins, has kindly given me a key for their game for promotional purposes. Any and all of the following opinions and experiences are mine, yours may differ. The game is currently in Early Access and may have altered since posting this review.

Paladins is a wonderful, free-to-play, deck-building, first-person shooter where you attempt to defeat the enemy team with lots of skills, guns and teamwork. Oh, and you can turn people into chickens.

MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arenas) aren’t really my thing, but I am enjoying Hi-Rez Studios’ Paladins so much that I would consider it one of my favourite games at the moment. Actually, it isn’t really a full-on MOBA, it’s more like a first-person shooter where you can build decks and buy upgrades in-match. In fact, that’s exactly what it is – and I absolutely love it.

In the game, which is currently in an open beta stage, you take control of one of a number of different champions to fight with your team against the enemy team. The champions range from raccoons with healing potions – at least I think he’s a raccoon – and knights with flamethrowers, to trees that throw axes and a goblin driving a robot killing-machine. I currently play mostly as Pip the Raccoon, due to the fact that anyone else that I have come across who plays as Pip has kept their healing potions all to themselves. Selfish and foolish, because only one person can play as each champion and lots of healers prefer Pip over the other support units (like me).

The champions in Paladins fall into four different categories, each skilled in certain things more than others. ‘Front line’ units are for people who like to be in front of their team, taking the bulk of the damage but still dishing lots out. ‘Damage’ is for players who want to stay behind the front line champions but can – if playing correctly – deal even more damage. If you are a fella who would rather stay behind the team and heal them, still dealing a bit of damage but mainly there to make sure the team isn’t dying constantly, then ‘support’ might be for you. Lastly, ‘flank’ is for those who think they would be a better help running around the battle and sneaking up from behind. Classic MOBA stuff.

You can play as one type and perform like another if you feel like you would be better like that. You could try to sneak around the main battle as Drogoz (a damage champion playing like a flank champion), or get right in there with Grover (a support champion acting as a front line or damage champion, depending on where you are). As stated above though, each type of champion is skilled in their own way, as well as each champion is different to the others. You can try, but it would be harder unless you have a pretty good idea on exactly what to do and how to do it well.

Each champion has a unique weapon and unique skills that need to cool down after use. Left click is for the main attack and your first weapon (the only attack without a cooldown but does have to reload or take time between strikes/throws/shots), right click, ‘Q’ and ‘F’ for your character’s two small skills and ‘E’ for your character’s main skill (which takes a long time to charge up but is well worth the wait).

Every champion also has their own card range that you can choose from to craft your own unique deck to fit your play style. This is something I love, especially as the decks are completely balanced and it doesn’t cost much to build a new one. When I started playing the game, I didn’t think much about my deck because the game automatically comes with pre-built ‘basic’ decks, so I just picked them and didn’t think it would make much difference. I was very wrong, as the basic decks are more balanced between each skill than tailored to one certain skill.

Immediately after realising I should change my deck up a bit I found that if I chose one particular card for Pip’s healing potion and upgrade it to the fourth level – the maximum – I could make the skill have an almost instant cooldown. This would only be possible if I managed to throw the potion in the middle of the team, so I started the next match, chose my custom ‘Power Pip’ deck and tried throwing my healing potion in the middle of the team when they were all bunched up in the spawn room. It worked once, so I tried it again straight after. It had an eight second cooldown – this is where the balancing comes in. I couldn’t make an overpowered deck (which is awesome), which means the developers had really thought about it before implementing it.

There are numerous cards you can choose to fit into your deck, but you must choose five different ones to use up all the slots in your deck or you can’t save it. After choosing the cards, you can upgrade them to whatever level up to four you decide, making the card better. Before saving your deck, you need to make sure you have used up all twelve deck slots (I will just call them that, I’m not sure what they are really called). Each card takes up one deck slot and each card upgrade adds another one. The cards cost 1,200 ‘gold’ each as far as I’ve seen, which you earn after playing each match.

You can also purchase upgrades throughout the rounds that give your champion small but life-saving buffs with ‘credits’ that you continuously gain as you play. These credits aren’t gold, but a separate currency that is only there when you are actually in a round.

So far everything seems great – the gameplay, the deck building, the champions, all perfect. One thing I have struggled a bit with is connection issues and getting randomly kicked from matches if my ping goes over a certain limit, especially when I’m playing with friends. Look, if I can put up with having to start shooting five seconds in advance, your machine should be able to as well, hosts!

When it comes to free-to-play games, something seems suspicious. ‘Microtransactions’ is the first word that comes into my head. Of course, the developers need to make money somewhere, but I’m sure almost everyone reading this would agree with me in saying that I would rather drop a tenner – maybe even twenty – for a game as long as it isn’t riddled with this ‘buy gems to buy more stuff and be better’ nonsense. Paladins has half of it, in that you can buy gems, but almost all of the things you can buy with gems can be obtained through playing the game. There are a few things here and there that you can only purchase with gems, but they are only cosmetic items that you can equip pre-match (that I’ve noticed).

There is also a ‘Paladins Founder’s Pack’ which you can pay US$15 for that gives you every champion in the game without paying any gold (and those coming out in the future), a skin for Fernando the flamethrower knight, a special fiery horse skin and twenty radiant chests which can give you cards for your champions’ decks or cosmetics (the chests can also be obtained through playing). All money paid is for a small head start or just to make your characters look different.

All in all, Paladins is awesome (of course it is, this is Hi-Rez we’re talking about) and being free-to-play, I reckon you should definitely try it out – even if, like me, you aren’t into many MOBAs. You might be surprised! The way the game currently stands in its open beta stage makes its future look very promising, I can’t wait to see what is yet to come!

Meridian: Squad 22

Headup Games, the publisher of Meridian: Squad 22, has kindly given me a key for their game for promotional purposes. Any and all of the following opinions and experiences are mine, yours may differ. The game is currently in Early Access and may have altered since posting this review.

Meridian: Squad 22 is a great indie real-time strategy in a science-fiction world where you must save humanity. It is also the sequel to one of the other great real-time strategy games - Meridian: New World!

Elder Games has taken a more strategic approach to real-time strategy games, making Meridian: Squad 22 more story-driven and building-oriented than most other games of the genre, with some mechanics similar to that you would find in tower defense games.

I’m going to start by saying I am having a great time playing this game. Its graphics are beautiful, its gameplay is very smooth and functional, its sounds and music are epic and it has a very old-school vibe going on, feeling like a remastered RTS game of the 90s.

The game itself is slightly complicated, but at the same time, quite easy to get the hang of. Your goal is to - as stated above - save humanity in a setting of about 1,000 years from now, almost entirely by keeping your main and most valuable characters alive. If they die, you fail the mission and have to start all over again.

In the - currently few - missions, you are tasked with building and leading a squad of troopers, drones and mechs. Each category of fighter has their own weaknesses and advantages, such as invisibility or being able to withstand more damage. You can choose between offensive and defensive tactics in the missions, deciding whether you wish to attack the enemy or attempt to secure your base and protect your main characters.

Although there are only a few missions at this point in time, the game is in Early Access so here’s to hoping that there will be more when the game is completed! Also, you might be inspired to play the game more than once, because some decisions you make in the missions can affect it later on.

The graphics are absolutely remarkable, making it truly feel like a game based in the future. The music and sound effects are also great and - on high volume - make me feel like I’m actually controlling a military squad. Well maybe not, because I wouldn’t have this much control over a military squad, but it’s very immersive nonetheless.

Overall I believe Meridian: Squad 22 is a very fun game. It may be somewhat short, but size doesn’t matter, it’s the experience, and the experience was brilliant! I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys or has enjoyed real-time strategy games.

I rate Meridian: Squad 22 8.5/10 sausage sizzles.

BugZy's Review: Dub Dash

Headup Games, the publisher of Dub Dash, has kindly given me a key for their game for promotional purposes. Any and all of the following opinions and experiences are mine, yours may differ.

Rhythm-based games are my jam. Pun intended. I love games where you play to the beat (like Audiosurf and Guitar Hero) and Dub Dash is a great example of them, with its fast-paced levels and the ability to make you feel terrible for failing but constantly wanting to try “just one more time.”

Your ultimate goal in the game is to beat each level, and in each level is to not crash. You are presented with a bunch of tracks containing obstacles that you must avoid to the beat of the music playing by using the left and right arrows which bounce your wheel-like character to the corresponding side, then occasionally using those same keys to bounce up when the level changes to a Flappy Bird-like mode and a few others. This is challenging but very rewarding when you manage to finish the level successfully.

There is currently no way to create your own levels or play your own music which is an opportunity missed out on as lots of games available do have those options. There is a “Challenge Mode” that randomly generates levels for you to earn more lives though, and a practice mode to hone your skills while you get your body ready to play the actual level.

There are definitely some negatives, such as having to press the left or right key slightly earlier than normal because the game beat is ever so slightly out of sync for some of the levels. There is also mostly no beat-like element when the game switches to the flying mode, just trying not to crash into anything.

The game features bright and colourful visuals which resemble something like a 3D Geometry Dash and an awesome soundtrack with music from the great Bossfight and DJs from Geometry Dash (the main element it needs, after all it is a music-based game.)

Overall the game is a great play and I believe it is worth the money paid for it. It is genuinely a very fun experience and I enjoyed almost every moment of it. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys rhythm-based games.

I rate Dub Dash 7.5/10 Aussie DJs.

Just1337 Studio, the developer of Neon Space, has kindly given us some keys for their game for promotional purposes. Any and all of the following opinions and experiences are mine, yours may differ.

Neon Space is a small $1 arcade puzzle/timing game. Your goal, in the world of this little and simple yet fun and highly addictive classic, is to navigate your spaceship through and around numerous still and moving obstacles, in an attempt to advance through and end up completing the game.

The game’s mechanics are a prime example of “easy to learn but hard to master,” where you change the direction of your little round character by using the left and right arrows, then moving forward and backward using the up and down arrows (it also supports gamepads.) It sounds simple, and it is, but under pressure it is incredibly easy to press the arrows a little bit longer than you should, causing you to undoubtedly fail as the red lines collide with you.

It is a game of timing - patience as much as swift reflexes. You can wait for the perfect moment, but wait half a second too long and you can say goodbye to your little spaceship. It can also be very frustrating when you’ve tried and failed a level ten times, but stick at it and you will be greatly rewarded with the feeling of accomplishment once you succeed.

Talking about timing, there is a timer on the screen, constantly reminding you of just how bad at the game you are, but also a reminder that you can beat that time displayed. A few more tries and you can get to 20 seconds instead of 25, then a few more and you can beat that score too!

You play in front of a few beautiful space-based backgrounds and through the neon curves and lines (that explains why it is called “Neon Space,”) which combine and make a great, somewhat retro-futuristic feel. Music is one of the most important things in Neon Space, being as it is an arcade game and can’t really be atmospheric, so you play alongside some sweet techno tracks (is it techno? I don’t know, the music of this generation is so confusing, I just try to sound cool.)

Conclusively, I believe you should spend $1, something you would usually find lying on your bench or under your sofa, on this great little arcade game.

For the price of the game, I rate Neon Space 9/10 spaceships.

Evil Twin Artworks, the developer and publisher of Man O’ War: Corsair, has kindly given us some keys for their game for promotional purposes. Any and all of the following opinions and experiences are mine, yours may differ. Man O’ War: Corsair is currently in Early Access at the time of posting this review and the game may change over time.

I stand there, gazing into the fog, peeking occasionally at my minimap, waiting for any sign that the monster of a ship I was fleeing from was still in pursuit. After a minute, I come to the conclusion that it is my lucky day. I barely escaped it, with my vessel looking like a burning fireball on the seas from the fierce and fast attacks of the blazing cannonballs. It has been a rough night, but it’s not over yet. I need to get back to the port to repair what was once my ship.

I thoroughly enjoyed Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, especially combatting against large groups of enemy ships. Man O’ War: Corsair is basically that, minus the assassins, plus the naval action. I will avoid comparing the two from now on, or the whole review would be just that. It is based on the world and story of Warhammer and the Man O’ War tabletop game by Games Workshop.

Your goal is to become the richest and most powerful man sailing on the seven seas by attacking and plundering enemy ships and selling what you gain from them, buying items cheap and selling them where they are more expensive, doing dangerous favours for gold and saving and escorting ally ships. The only thing that is more important than getting rich, is not getting blown to pieces or eaten by a shark.

When you first load up the game, you are brought to what could be a great character creation screen. I say “could be” because the game is currently in Early Access and at this moment in time only allows you to change your character’s gender and name. After deciding whose story you want to create, choosing the difficulty of the game - easy of course, unless you’re hardcore - and picking the name and emblem of your vessel, you are entered into a tutorial phase of sorts. It consists of blowing a few ships up whilst having the controls displayed on your screen, assisting you on the beginning of your journey.

After passing the tutorial, you are forced to sail to a town called Norden and buy some fish. Sounds exciting, right? The game features a nice and functional trading system, where certain villages produce certain goods and allow the purchasing of those goods for a cheap price. The items bought can then be taken to other villages that don’t produce said goods, to be sold for a larger amount of gold, making you profit.

Moving between the ports can be risky, as you can find yourself fighting Orcs that want you dead, especially when there are several ships coming toward you. Some of the frog men's ships are equipped with drills, allowing them to charge at you, reducing your ship’s armour by a hefty chunk, leaving you, like me, a blazing fireball in the middle of the ocean. Taking one or two of the enemy ships out is relatively easy when using the side cannons on your vessel, three or four quite a lot harder, but when there is a group of five or more, you want to get out of there immediately. I made the mistake of attempting to take down five ships, and let’s just say I am glad you can load saves.

You can also choose to board opposing ships, shooting the holy hell out of your enemies and raiding them of their cargo, or you can let them sink and drown horribly, living the rest of their short lives without air. If you choose the latter of the two options, you are a monster. In fact, you are a monster anyway. There is no way of escaping it, you’re attacking Orcs.

Although enemy ships are dangerous, sea monsters are just as bad, if not worse. They can tear your ship apart if you’re not careful and if you don’t fire at them enough, leaving you in a terrible situation if your ship is almost succumbing to the attacks of the angry, ugly ocean-dwellers. They, too, can be deterred or killed, using the power of the side cannons on your ship. Basically, firing aimlessly at them until you feel safe. Oh, and they are absolutely huge and immensely terrifying.

You are also given the ability to change the speed of the game, whether you would like to slow it down to get some epic cinematic shots or speed it up to get to your destination faster. This is a great feature that has been executed very well and comes in handy a lot, so you don’t have to wait twenty minutes to get to a port.

A game featuring ships and wide open spaces requires a large map, which Man O’ War: Corsair has. There are over fifty ports to visit, which is saying something. It doesn’t seem massive when you change the speed of the game to four times as fast (the fastest it allows you to go to,) but when you are fighting and evading enemy ships and sea beasts, it easily takes a while to navigate. While I couldn’t give you an educated guess as to just how big the map actually is due to the fact that I have a short attention span when it comes to measuring and maths, you can trust me when I say it would take a very long time to explore the whole area.

I do have some framerate issues every now and then, which is strange because I can run GTA V on my computer on ultra settings without any problem. My drivers are updated and I have better than the recommended requirements to run the game but it still drops to about 5 FPS occasionally. This compromises my gameplay sometimes and takes from the overall experience, especially when it gives the enemy AI an advantage over me. It could just be my rig, but I am 98% sure it isn’t.

The graphics are great, being a fun sort of realistic and the ships are very detailed, you can tell it would have taken a long time to make them. The music is a mixture of epic and epic and the sound effects are that you would expect from a game of the genre, as well as the captain frequently barking orders and shouting at people to clean the deck, ignoring the fact that you are being shot at by several different ships at the same time.

Despite the game currently being in Early Access and supposedly that for another few months, it is great fun and I believe it has a lot of further potential. Of course there are a few small issues and bugs here and there, as with all Early Access titles, but I can guarantee in a couple of months it will be a game to call complete.

Due to the game being an Early Access title, I believe it would be unfair to give Man O' War: Corsair a number rating at this point in time, but with the way it currently stands, I recommend it.